Tool vibration is a severe problem in the machining industry, resulting in increased cutting effort, tool wear, and poor surface quality of the end product. An innovative and resilient damper is always in demand from the ever-growing machining industry to manage tool vibration. Several smart materials were employed in the past to create a damper. In the recent past, magneto-rheological elastomers, a type of smart materials with the capacity to alter their stiffness based on the applied magnetic field, have become the focus of attention. Its constituents determine its properties, and in this study, the effects of factors, such as iron particle orientation and size, were investigated. Cutting experiments were performed at the optimal turning process of hardened SS410 steel to confirm the results obtained from characterization. From the observed results, it was evident that the use if magneto-rheological elastomer during dry turning of hardened SS410 has effectively reduced vibration. Thus, improving the cutting performance as a whole. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.